Political Poll

[Crocefisso]

In three years of having the ability, I have yet to vote. I can't bring myself to vote for a person that I do not completely agree with.

 

As much as Ron Paul seems to know what he's doing, the thought of him in office makes me a bit leery. I don't know if I trust his policies that much and I don't think that Congress will go along with a lot of them if any.

 

This is true, especially with the scary amount of influence lobbyists seem to have in the US (far, far more than in the UK, and I imagine most other European countries), I don't think many of those industrialists and their buddies who profit from Afghanistan/Iraq/Libya would take too kindly to Paul's foreign policy.

 

But what option is there for the USA?

 

Mitt Romney... well, I think that the cartoon of Romney with lots of mouths saying 'Stop me when you hear something you like' sums up Mitt Romney. I hear he was a good Governor, but I don't think he's Presidential material.

 

Michele Bachmann is essentially Sarah Palin, except that she is slightly more intelligent and looks more like a plastic doll. Combine her moronic nature with her lack of real management experience... let's face it, she's a disaster waiting to happen.

 

Can't say I know or care much about Pawlenty, Santorum, Cain or the rest of them, because they're all the sort that are going to get knocked out pretty quick I reckon.

 

On the Democratic side, there's pretty much just Obama and, though he's an amazing orator, he really is just all talk.

[Hamtaro]

As much as I'd love to have the debate elsewhere, the ethics of gun control isn't the point. Right or wrong, I'm suggesting a possible but hypothetical situation where the repealment of the Second Amendment the the enforcement of gun control has popular American public support, and the politicians reflect that sentiment.

 

Let me generalise, if the constitution explicitly banned the government from enacting a certain law, what is stopping the government from amending the constitution in a way that nullifies the offending amendment and then enacting that law?

 

EDIT: Also, huh. So tip.it is a bit left wing.

As far as I know, there is nothing hindering us from appealing an amendment. There are (at least how I will word it) two sections of amendments:

1. The Bill of Rights (the first ten) established at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which a vast majority of Americans confuse with the Declaration of Independence from 1776 and the Articles of Confederation. Even though none of the actual "founding fathers" were present at the Constitutional Convention, if anyone suggests stricter gun control, someone will go out to buy another gun while proclaiming that the founding fathers gave them the right to bear arms or some nonsense like that. For this reason, most Americans hold the Bill of Rights more sacred than the rest.

2. The 11th Amendment and beyond aren't so valuable to the traditional American. When our Dough Boys were off fighting alongside France and Britain against Germany in the first world war, a few religious and woman's suffrage groups lobbied for the passage of the 18th Amendment (the prohibition of alcohol). Eventually the Great Depression became so bad and smuggling/gangsters became such a problem that an amendment was passed, repealing the amendment (my point being, it has been done before).

 

The problem with passing new amendments is the way that system works. It's based on the number of states that elect to ratify it or not. Obama just won the election, so it looks like this may be possible because a majority of voters are left-leaning.

[spoiler=Oh wait that means nothing in our flawed system...]

All of the red states are ones that would support the second amendment to no end, even though the blue ones have far more population. You need 38 (3/4ths of) states to pass an amendment.

 

Yep, the writers of the constitution totally foresaw that there would be many low population states with similar political tendencies that can have the same power as the largest states in this matter.[/sarcasm] But yeah, I would agree with you on this, but our system doesn't work so well as it did in the 1700s, and we're kind of stuck in an infinite loop because of it (trying to pass an amendment to give states weaker power and give the power to the majority while using the state system won't exactly work).

[Will H]

Thanks for the answer. I stick by my belief that Constitutions are best left unwritten, really.

[Crocefisso]

Thanks for the answer. I stick by my belief that Constitutions are best left unwritten, really.

 

True Brit. ;) I agree with you; aside from the USA, you just have to look at all the irritation it's causing Turkey to realise that constitutions provide more trouble than anything else.

[Range_This11]

 

In three years of having the ability, I have yet to vote. I can't bring myself to vote for a person that I do not completely agree with.

 

As much as Ron Paul seems to know what he's doing, the thought of him in office makes me a bit leery. I don't know if I trust his policies that much and I don't think that Congress will go along with a lot of them if any.

You're missing the point bro. It's not about having someone who will meet your exact political beliefs, because the people that are currently running for office are at least 20 years older than you. None of them will have your identical beliefs because they were raised in a completely different time. What you should do is vote for the person who comes the closest. After all, someone is going to be elected whether or not you cast a vote, so you might as well do your best to make sure it's the person most tolerable from your point of view.

 

I don't believe that at all. And yes I do understand the point, bro.

 

What I should do is vote for the person with who I am comfortable holding office. If I am not comfortable with any of the candidates, I am not going to vote for someone who I think will do a bad job. Most elections I feel (like the creators of South Park) like my choices are between a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwich. Why should I choose a candidate that I don't agree with just to cast a vote? If I have a right to do something, I also have a right to not do it as well.

 

Edit: And you missed the part of my second post where I said I would vote for someone who was relatively close. I'm not looking for my political soulmate, just someone who doesn't completely suck.

I don't understand. Someone is going to be elected regardless of whether or not you vote. However, it is up to you and other voters to choose which one will be elected. Now, if you have Giant Douche and Turd Sandwich, and you have even the slightest preference towards one, you may as well vote for them because the alternative is you end up with the other.

 

Yes, you have the right not to vote, but it is always in your best interest to vote. Even if you feel uncomfortable with either candidate holding office, you should vote for the one you prefer. You say you won't vote for someone who will do a bad job, but in an election if you feel that one candidate is going to do a terrible job and the other is going to do a slightly better job, you're doing yourself a disservice by risking that you end up with the guy who's even worse.

In 2008 I didn't vote because we all knew Obama was gonna landslide it. That was my first year of eligible voting. Next year I am considering voting against the Republican candidate because none of them are worth it. Bachmann is from the district I go to college and she is a nut case. I will vote against her. But at the same time, how can I vote for Obama if I disagree with the way he runs the country? It doesn't make any sense to vote for someone just because they are the lesser of two evils. Either way, I am still choosing an evil. I would rather have a clean conscious by not voting, knowing that I had no part in putting someone in office who is doing detriment to this country.

[Range_This11]

Don't tell me my conscience won't be affected. It will. There is no evil that will be good for me. I'm sorry, you're not going to convince me of that.

[Ginger_Warrior]

I've yet to meet any politician I completely 100% agree with. I think they're all wrong to varying degrees. But at the end of the day, I'd rather see my Labour MP representing me in the House of Commons than a different party that I fundamentally disagree with, such as UKIP or the Conservatives. At least with Labour on the basics, I agree. The detail I'll argue about later if I feel strongly enough about it.

 

Don't you see what I'm saying? To not vote against someone you completely disagree with is to offer the same level of tacit support to someone you do half agree with.

[Crocefisso]

Don't tell me my conscience won't be affected. It will. There is no evil that will be good for me. I'm sorry, you're not going to convince me of that.

Well then you're a just an arrogant fool who refuses to try to help others and himself.

 

You're getting too personal, rocco, and both Range and you are getting a little too off topic for my liking. Accept that Range doesn't vote because he is not obliged to and leave it at that. I highly doubt that insulting him is going to change his mind.

 

Changing the subject, I notice that there are many Labour voters here, for whom I have a question: why?

[Crocefisso]

"PS: All political discussion is encouraged; I will not consider any politically themed debate to be off topic. "

 

How is what we're talking about not relevant to this?

 

And yes, that was a bit too personal, I've edited my last post.

 

I'll edit that later; essentially, I interpret politically themed debate more to do with ideology and actual political and policy issues, rather than arguing over why someone should/shouldn't vote, their conscience, arrogance, bla bla bla.

[Flyingjj]

As long as it's not Michelle Bachman, I'm fairly neutral about Republican candidates. I had to sit through her Minnesota campaign, and I was not at all pleased.

 

Personally, I used to be pretty much dead center moderate, but after attending a liberal liberal arts school for three years, I'd say I lean a lot more democratic than republican. I do think the tea party is crazy though. Well, crazy is a little insensitive, I just don't really see their reasoning. And since tea party politics seems to dominate Republican thinking at the moment, I can hardly stand to listen to Republican banter without being either dumbfounded or angry.

[obfuscator]

I can sympathize with the TP to some extent - they see obvious problems but I think by and large they propose very misguided solutions. I don't particularly consider the american left much better though.

[Flyingjj]

My biggest problem with conservative ideology is it's defense of large corporations. They think tax breaks to corporations will promote job growth. I don't understand this idea, when trends show that the tax breaks that companies get often go directly to bonuses to execs. As such, I support ending tax breaks to corporations and closing loopholes.

 

They say tax breaks are for "small businesses", but I'd like a definition of this term as the only type of business I've heard of benefiting from a the tax breaks that are talked about are multi-million dollar "small businesses."

[h3art]

I don't live the US/UK and voted unsure/other.

 

Will probably be voting No Confidence this coming election (November) as no party adequately represents my political views, which is extreme social liberalism and a centrist economic stance revolving around retained state control of infrastructure.

[Guest Rob]

I'll admit, I know much less about politics than I should. But I appear to be center-left (Canadian), from what I've read about the whole spectrum.

[Will H]

I'm surprised that there haven't been any people who voted SNP yet (or any independence supporting party), considering that they have an absolute majority in the Scottish Assembly.

[Ginger_Warrior]

Changing the subject, I notice that there are many Labour voters here, for whom I have a question: why?

Because it is my belief that Labour in principle best supports the concepts that people who inherit more and earn the most from society should have to pay most back into society as a means of social progression, and that those who aspire to make more of themselves should not have their opportunities decided by who they were born to or how much their family owns, but by simply whether or not they have the talent to realise that potential--recent figures from Oxbridge suggest we haven't done enough when it comes to sending people from less wealthy backgrounds to our top universities. I also advocate the welfare state, as a means of providing shelter and support to those who are experiencing financial hardship. I also believe that fairness is a goal in itself that requires no further validation, and that this should not be interfered with because of idealogical dogma.

 

By contrast with the Conservatives, I do not believe people should just be allowed to inherit their family's wealth from generation to generation, because this isn't the basis for a progressive economy where the disparity between rich and poor is reduced. I also do not believe that a reduction in public expenditure helps those who are capable of lifting themselves out of poverty, but are unable to do so because funding for local projects has been scrapped--an example of this is how the JobCentre recently has had to drop its promise of work experience to 16 to 24 year olds who are long-term unemployed (six months plus) simply because they can no longer afford to make such opportunities available; or the scrapping of Educational Maintenance Allowance for those children who attend further education coming from low-income families. Tory plans for married couples to have tax breaks are fundamentally unfair to those parents who have to raise children on their own, often for good reasons such as death or a 'healthy' divorce, and it's obvious such plans are driven by the Tories' idealogical dogma about the sanctity of marriage and thus the Church than they are about keeping families together and making sure children are raised in a loving and supporting environment.

 

In addition, this 'Big Society' idea is a scandal, when funding for charitable organisations, particularly local ones, has been all but eliminated. The Conservative government wants more people to become volunteers--I don't think there's a political party alive that would honestly say they want less people volunteering in their local community--but they won't provide funding so that they can be trained.

[Crocefisso]

The problem as I see it with the Labour Party is that they think simply redistributing wealth and creative a massive, centralised social security system is going to improve people's long term wellbeing. Their neoliberal fiscal policies from 1997-2010 were such a massive ideological contradiction, and their total lack of controls and backup plans (such as those predicted and proposed by NN Taleb) hit their typical electorate the hardest.

 

Inherited wealth is, true, something that is far from desireable in a society. But people like my father are robbed by society, when he came to the UK as an immigrant with very few belongings, from a poor background but with just enough education to get to a mediocre university here, work hard, and subsequently end up earning a very good wage. Yet Labour's policies forced him to pay extortionate amounts to fund social security which, though a good principle, was too centralised to ever work properly and ended up producing a few towns where a majority of the 'workforce' scrounged on benefits. On top of this, my father has never used any of these services, not even the NHS, and gives to various charities. The core principles of the Labour Party aren't bad, but they have yet to executive them well.

 

Our society has become too dependent on the state, and the notions of true hard work - in which people lift themselves out of poverty entirely on their own - have been diminished. The basic ideas of social security are good, but they need to be balanced with granting the individual what is rightfully theirs and respecting this.

 

On the point of the Big Society, I agree that it is a sham. I'm not a big fan of David Cameron; as a Tory member, I wanted Ken Clarke as leader in 2005. But it is not comparable to 'New Labour', which was a bigger sham that more people blindly accepted.

 

PS: Range This11, you have voted incorrectly. Please read the rules and vote again.

[Surprise]

Here I voted conservatives as currently it's the Party that I feel best to lead us forward though,

 

My problem with the Liberal Democrats is they seem to have no capability of thinking on their own feet; from the previous election it seemed like they just swapped sides depending on which way the wind was blowing. Nick Clegg also seems to have no back bone and to stand up for what his party supposedly stands/stood for. It's why I was opposed to any idea of changing the voting system; a chance of giving the Lib Dems a chance of increased power was taking two steps back at fixing the broken economy and society.

 

Labour, well to sum it up in short. I think the leaders of New Labour verged on a joke. They seemed to have no real ideal of making this country work instead living off the boom bubble that was generated throughout their ruling of the last 10 years. This lead to ridiculous spending in sectors which was a waste and unsupportable which has to ultimately lead to all these cut backs.

 

Conservatives mean while have seemed to adopt this policy of wielding scissors and cutting anywhere and everywhere in futile attempts at trying to cut back the budget deficiency, "shoot first question later" attitude.Some areas they are tackling I agree with, mainly the benefit sector. Far too long have people been able to cheat the system and claim money, disadvantaging both those who need the benefits but also those who work hard and pay so much tax towards it.. However, I disagree with the whole concept of the Big Society which is turning into some big shenanigan. Does anybody actually know what this "Big Society" actually stands for?

[Folding]

I meant to vote for the SDLP, but I guess Sinn Féin will have to do.

 

I'm surprised to see that quite there are quite a few more Democrats than Republicans, and that Conservatives are seriously outnumbered by more left leaning parties, but I shouldn't be, because in my experience, those who are Atheist tend to be more left-leaning, too. Do you think that this factors in or not? Bearing in mind, of course, that ~50% voted for Atheism in the Census thread, but left-leaning parties seem to hold around 70% or so. It would probably have made more sense to have all of these (Both the census thread and this thread) in one poll so the data would be easier to compare and contrast.

 

But overall, it seems to me that TIF are more left-leaning than anything, and that's fine by me.

[Will H]

Does anybody actually know what this "Big Society" actually stands for?

I'm not sure why people don't answer this question, I've got a pretty clear idea; The Big Society is the concept that everyone should be consciously considering and doing things that help the local community in general, instead of doing everything according to pure self-interest. It's a mindset.

 

Extreme examples are participating in volunteer projects to renovate dilapidated parks, removing unwanted graffiti or help run a public event, but it also includes smaller things like keeping hold of litter until you find a bin, being polite to people in public, having a tidy front garden, going to that local shop on the corner instead of going to a supermarket. Simply being a nice decent member of society, really.

[Surprise]

Does anybody actually know what this "Big Society" actually stands for?

I'm not sure why people don't answer this question, I've got a pretty clear idea; The Big Society is the concept that everyone should be consciously considering and doing things that help the local community in general, instead of doing everything according to pure self-interest. It's a mindset.

 

Extreme examples are participating in volunteer projects to renovate dilapidated parks, removing unwanted graffiti or help run a public event, but it also includes smaller things like keeping hold of litter until you find a bin, being polite to people in public, having a tidy front garden, going to that local shop on the corner instead of going to a supermarket. Simply being a nice decent member of society, really.

 

So simply ethos which every "decent" person should already have in them? That's pretty ridiculous.

[Will H]

Does anybody actually know what this "Big Society" actually stands for?

I'm not sure why people don't answer this question, I've got a pretty clear idea; The Big Society is the concept that everyone should be consciously considering and doing things that help the local community in general, instead of doing everything according to pure self-interest. It's a mindset.

 

Extreme examples are participating in volunteer projects to renovate dilapidated parks, removing unwanted graffiti or help run a public event, but it also includes smaller things like keeping hold of litter until you find a bin, being polite to people in public, having a tidy front garden, going to that local shop on the corner instead of going to a supermarket. Simply being a nice decent member of society, really.

 

So simply ethos which every "decent" person should already have in them? That's pretty ridiculous.

 

Why is it ridiculous?

[Surprise]

Does anybody actually know what this "Big Society" actually stands for?

I'm not sure why people don't answer this question, I've got a pretty clear idea; The Big Society is the concept that everyone should be consciously considering and doing things that help the local community in general, instead of doing everything according to pure self-interest. It's a mindset.

 

Extreme examples are participating in volunteer projects to renovate dilapidated parks, removing unwanted graffiti or help run a public event, but it also includes smaller things like keeping hold of litter until you find a bin, being polite to people in public, having a tidy front garden, going to that local shop on the corner instead of going to a supermarket. Simply being a nice decent member of society, really.

 

So simply ethos which every "decent" person should already have in them? That's pretty ridiculous.

 

Why is it ridiculous?

 

It's ethos which should already be installed into people through their upbringing. If it isn't there at the start it won't be there at the end.

[Ginger_Warrior]

We already have laws that prevent people from dumping litter before they find a bin. I'm not sure why some airy-fairy, intangible and generally confusing idea is needed to stop people from littering... unless of course what we're actually admitting is there'll be less police officers to enforce the law.

[Will H]

Does anybody actually know what this "Big Society" actually stands for?

I'm not sure why people don't answer this question, I've got a pretty clear idea; The Big Society is the concept that everyone should be consciously considering and doing things that help the local community in general, instead of doing everything according to pure self-interest. It's a mindset.

 

Extreme examples are participating in volunteer projects to renovate dilapidated parks, removing unwanted graffiti or help run a public event, but it also includes smaller things like keeping hold of litter until you find a bin, being polite to people in public, having a tidy front garden, going to that local shop on the corner instead of going to a supermarket. Simply being a nice decent member of society, really.

 

So simply ethos which every "decent" person should already have in them? That's pretty ridiculous.

 

Why is it ridiculous?

 

It's ethos which should already be installed into people through their upbringing. If it isn't there at the start it won't be there at the end.

 

That doesn't sounds ridiculous, that makes perfect sense. A sense of social responsibility fundamentally comes from education, which is where the government comes in. That's the point.

 

Am I missing something?